With the festival season no longer confined to those more aestival months of the year, it falls to the likes of Club To Club – inaugurated in Turin, in 2002 – to fuel a brumal euphoria. And with previous editions having played host to anyone and everyone – or, rather, everyone who’s anyone within the world of ‘electronic music’ – from Krautrock progenitors Kraftwerk playing eight consecutive nights’ ‘chronological exploration’ to Ionia, Sicilian polymath Franco Battiato, to Thom Yorke, to Richie Hawtin, to Ricardo Villalobos, to Flying Lotus (via Animal Collective, Caribou, Nils Frahm, The Knife, Moderat, Run The Jewels and so on), as the nights draw in, there may be no better place to welcome in the drawn-out darkness than Piedmont next month. Indeed, this year’s theme is La luce al buio (or, for those of you without a still-inexplicable Italian degree to decorate your CV, ‘The Light in the Dark’), and with incendiary Danish noiseniks Iceage, the polychromic avant-pop of Jamie xx and cerebral ambient torchbearer David August set to light up a luminary rundown, it would seem ben nominato from a distance, at least. Upon closer inspection, though, it’s those Phlange Phaces and (less Logan Rock, but more Baltimorean or Berlin-based South Korean) witches heading up the bill which look most likely to light up Turin in November…
Who: The ceaselessly subversive Richard D. James, whose recent Collapse EP marked a strident return to form.
Why: It’s pretty well impossible to predict what sort of set James will lavish upon those drukq-guzzling Flapheads banging about before him at any which show, making his rare ventures into the live arena all the more unmissable. There may be Classics or certain Selected Ambient Works, or neither of the aforementioned; there will undoubtedly be no shortage of audio-visual overload, however.
When: Saturday; Main Stage, Lingotto.
Who: Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, whose languid dream-pop and laconic demeanour have cultivated quite the fascination amongst indie aficionados worldwide.
Why: As Girl/Boy Song[s] go, few do it any better than the Maryland duo whose imaginatively entitled seventh full-length, 7, proved a regenerative, shoegaze-indebted dream. And, demonstrative of genuine maturity, from the zesty Lemon Glow to the invitingly labile Dive, it’s a record few would have foreseen, which fewer still will have refused. The live show will likely carry a comparable allure of course, with this one of many Italian exclusives at this year’s Club To Club.
When: Friday; Main Stage, Lingotto.
Who: Seoul-born, but now Berlin-residing DJ whose Once three-track covered everything from Balearic house to ebullient nu-disco, and demanded both attention and approbation.
Why: Peggy Gou’s elastic, fantastically gloopy exoteric workouts are what Friday nights were made for, and will bring a warmth that may otherwise be lacking over the course of the weekend.
When: Friday; Main Stage, Lingotto.
Club To Club 2018 takes place between Thursday, 1st and Sunday, 4th November in a number of venues throughout Turin. Further info can be found over at the official site, while tickets are currently available via this particular link. Al buio!